The Auntie Matter

Fourth Doctor Adventures #2.1

Released: 14 January 2013

Listened: 5/30/22

The official full-cast stories start out, rather oddly, with a farce, a P.G. Wodehouse parody, with all that entails. The Doctor decides to hang out in 1920s London for a while, annoying Romana, who goes in search of intellectual stimulation. Enter stereotypical upper-class twit Reginald "Reggie" Comely-Bassett, along with his stereotypical dry valet Grenville. Reggie’s searching for a bride at the insistence of his maiden aunt, and being not terribly bright, he latches onto Romana as the first person he sees, and brings her home to meet Auntie. It seems that something odd is going on at Bassett Hall, which independently attracts the Doctor’s attention. The cast is top-notch, with Robert Portal putting on an outrageous speech impediment as Reggie, Alan Cox doing his best Stephen Fry as Grenville, and national treasure Julia McKenzie as the evil Auntie, well before she played The Twelve. Most of the plot is dedicated to keeping the Doctor and Romana apart as they work at the same problem from opposite ends, and giving Reggie as many absurd lines as possible. It’s a strange choice to start this run with a comedy, but it’s definitely a memorable story.